Government Regulations Can Be the Solution
In "The Clean Room" episode of COSMOS, Neil DeGrasse Tyson reviews the work of Clair Patterson, et al, in researching the toxicity of lead and the decades-long effort to eliminate the emission of toxic lead into the atmosphere (mostly from leaded gas products) and lead used in children's toys.
We are currently surrounded with the same sort of confrontation between climate scientists and companies that make their profits from products and services that pollute the atmosphere.
Ronald Reagan used to claim that government is not the solution, but the problem. But it is clear that without government intervention, lead pollution in our atmosphere would still be a major problem. And it is also clear that if government doesn't step in and exert control, it may still take decades to solve the problem of global warming -- and we simply don't have that much time.
Statements like the one Reagan made are nothing more than an excuse for the incompetence of those who utter them. But I cannot help wondering if
anyone voted for Reagan who owned a company that manufactures tools, computers or anything else, and if so, if they saw fit to hire job applicants
who said tools (or computers) are the problem, never the solution? If so, I bet those companies folded long ago.
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